So I bought a Saturday ticket, drove out for the afternoon, and had a much better time than I expected.

Photos are at Flickr if you want to jump straight to them.

Arrival

For those not familiar with the area, the Anaheim Convention Center is literally across the street from Disney’s California Adventure. There isn’t much in the way of public parking in the area that isn’t attached to a shopping center, a hotel, or Disneyland, but there was plenty of room in the convention center parking structure. Of course, it took more than 10 minutes to get into the structure — longer than I spent on the freeway!

There were two events at the convention center this weekend: Anaheim Comic Con in Hall D, and a Specialty Coffee event in Halls B, C and E. I was half-tempted to find out whether the coffee event was open to the public!

Main Floor

The first thing I saw when stepping onto the main floor was the Red Mist car from Kick-Ass (which opened this weekend). The second thing was the Suicide Girls booth. The third was a long line of people waiting for an event.

There was the usual mix of collectibles dealers, comics dealers, artists, celebrities, the ever-present giant T-shirt booth, prop & costume exhibits, fan groups, etc. There was a heavy Star Wars fan presence (more about that later). The one that really surprised me was the bar that had been set up next to the food service area!

The weird thing: There was virtually no industry presence. I’m not sure I saw a single comic publisher booth. In the battle between C2E2 and Wizard, the publishers came down solidly on the side of C2E2, not even bothering to send a token delegation to Anaheim. It can be done. Last year, DC did full-up DC Nation panels at both WonderCon (California) and MegaCon (Florida) the same weekend.

Space!

Compared to WonderCon two weeks ago, the main floor seemed bigger, but took less time to explore. Judging by the floor plans, the area actually used looks about the same, but the breakdown was different:

• Registration was handled at the front of the hall, not in the lobby or another room.
• The back was blocked off for staging.
• There were lunch tables at one side near the food service. (This was sorely missing at WonderCon!)
• Artist’s Alley was quite a bit smaller.
• The celebrity autograph area was huge.

It was probably comparable to the last Wizard World Los Angeles, except that I remember a lot of empty space at that con, a bigger Artist’s Alley, and a smaller celebrity area. I’d actually guess that the celebrity area at this con took up about 1/4 of the floor space!

One annoying thing: the main floor was at one end of the convention center. The programming rooms were at the opposite end. Because of the coffee con in between, to get to the panels, you had to go outside, then walk along the entire length of the convention center, then go back inside and up to the second level.

Star Wars and Batman

The Star Wars presence was probably a mix of two things: 1. Regional groups aren’t going to Chicago. 2. It’s the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back.

That included groups such as the 501st Legion, the Saber Guild, LA Jedi, and a group that builds working droids.

The Sabre Guild had a prime spot near the T-shirt booth and had set up a ring to perform mock lightsaber battles and demonstrate other skills. Sort of like a mix of fencing and tall flags with lightsabers. They also had music from the movies playing continuously all day, broken up occasionally by the disco version of the Star Wars theme. There were a couple of really good Aayla Secura costumes in that group, and a little girl wearing a Republic Jedi costume who at one point added a Hit-Girl mask and wig and posed in front of the Kick-Ass car.

The other big costume theme was the 1960s Batman TV series — almost certainly because the con had brought together much of the show’s cast, including Adam West, Burt Ward, Julie Newmar, Yvonne Craig and Lee Meriwether, and the Batmobile.

The Sexy

Because of the light industry presence, there weren’t many in the way of booth babes. The Evil Cheerleaders seem to be everywhere these days, plus there were cheerleaders for a energy drink called Bite Me. I was surprised at how many kids were posing with them, actually. Suicide Girls had a big presence, with at least a dozen models, and there was a dance troupe (the Purrfect Angels) who dressed in skimpy versions of super-heroine and sci-fi costumes and danced on a raised stage next to the lunch area.

Then there was the booth placement in the celebrity area, where a pair of 14-year-old girls who had written a science-fiction novel were placed next to a bikini model. Way to send the kids a message, Wizard.

Gollum vs. Uhura

Late in the day, I was walking by where a man dressed (if you can call it that) as Gollum was crawling around, mewling about “My Precious” and showing off a DVD of an independent film with that title. This was at the corner of the celebrity area, where Nichelle Nichols was doing a signing. He crawled into her booth, jumped up on the table, started showing everyone “My Precious,” then turned toward the Star Trek actress. She yelped and started hitting him with a plastic water bottle, at which point he took a dive off the table and tumbled onto the floor, then scurried off.

He did pretty much the same thing with the judges’ table at the costume contest that evening.

Costume Contest

The costume contest was more organized than the one at the last Wizard World LA, though nowhere near as formal as, say the Comic-Con International Masquerade. Most contestants simply walked in one door, past the judges, and out the other. Actually, a lot of them early on hadn’t been told to pause so that the judges could see! A few had prepared simple routines, or at least speeches — including, as I mentioned, Gollum, who made the biggest impression. Some other stand-outs (some for craftsmanship, some for attitude) included Count Chocula, the Angel of Death from Hellboy II, Doctor Octopus, and Silk Spectre.

As I was going through my photos, I found it interesting that I had actually run into a lot of the winners out on the floor: Doctor Octopus, Gollum, Silk Spectre…

Food in Anaheim

Concession stands line the edges between the exhibit halls: coffee, sandwiches, tacos, etc. I only had the coffee, which was decent, though the clerk warned us to use the swizzle sticks and not the spoons, because they might melt! All of the hotels in the convention complex have their own restaurants ranging from casual dining to somewhat more expensive places like Morton’s. The Hilton also has fast food including a Starbucks, Sbarro, Baja Fresh, and a smoothie place.

Across the street you can find standard fast food like Subway. The Ramada has an Indian restaurant with a lunch buffet. If you walk around Disney’s California Adventure to the west, you can get to the Downtown Disney shopping center. If you walk east along Katella, you can get to the Anaheim Garden Walk, which has a few mid-range chain restaurants (California Pizza Kitchen, P.F. Chang’s, etc.) and a food court that’s currently running at half capacity. Unless your name is Barry, Jay, Wally or Bart, figure on about 20 minutes to get there. The blocks are large and the traffic signals are long.

Tip: If you plan to cross the street, go out to Katella along the convention center first, not out to Harbor through the hotels. It’s just as long, but there are trees and shade.

What If…Comic-Con International?

Assuming the other halls are about the same size as this one, I think the full convention center could probably handle something the size of the Comic-Con International exhibit floor. The main hurdle is that only about 1/3 of the wall between each section is actually removable (the middle section is permanent, holding the concession counters). Sure, it would make it easy to divide the main floor up into themes — one section for comics, one for movies and TV, one for games, etc. — but it would also create bottlenecks.

I didn’t get a good sense of the meeting rooms, since the con only used a couple of rooms, and I don’t remember much from the last convention I attended since the expansion. (It was a WorldCon, and I experienced the whole thing through the combined haze of a summer cold and Day-Quil.)

There is room to spill over into the nearby hotels, though. There are at least four in the same complex, and I know at least two of them have a good supply of meeting rooms and ballrooms. They’re closer to the center than anything in San Diego other than the Marriott, and they don’t require you to cross a busy street or railroad tracks.

Check out my full set of photos on Flickr.

A group decided to step in and fill the void by launching the Long Beach Comic Con. The first convention is this weekend…at the Long Beach Convention Center.

Tonight I drove past a billboard and found out what’s going on this weekend at the LA Convention Center, where Wizard World would have been:

“Adultcon.”

Given some of the opinions I’ve seen expressed about Wizard, I suspect there will be people wondering, “What’s the difference?”

It started after last year’s Comic-Con, when I decided I wanted to go to something a bit less…intense. Last year’s Wizard World LA was nice, but a bit sparse, so I went looking for more comic and general sci-fi/fantasy cons within driving distance of the LA/OC area. Surprisingly, I didn’t find much. Gaming conventions, costuming conventions, Anime Expo, sure, but sci-fi? Pretty much just Loscon, which we both gave up on after 2002 (and from what I’ve heard, hasn’t picked up again). I asked around a bit on some forums, and someone on either Comic Bloc or Newsarama suggested WonderCon, and suggested considering the city as a vacation destination, not just a place to find a hotel for the con.

Since WonderCon worked out so well, I’m looking at what else might be fun. That’s part of why I did my price comparison last month, and Kevin Standlee’s comments got me looking at WorldCons and the like again. Not for this year, but maybe a few years out.

Looking at all these cons, I realized that beyond a certain threshold, distance doesn’t matter. Only the destination. If it’s far enough away that you have to fly, the only thing that distance impacts is the cost of your plane ticket. Whether your flight is 5 hours or 10 hours*, it’s still going to take up most of a day or night when you factor in dealing with the airports. Everything else, from hotel prices to whether you need a passport, a phrasebook, or currency exchange, is a factor of the destination.

WonderCon, I think, was at the boundary of driving distance from here. We could make the trip out in one day, but it was a lot more fun to break it into stages and make it a road trip. San Diego is at the boundary of commuting distance. We could drive out there in the morning and drive back at night (and I did that with my parents for over a decade), but it’s not practical to do for more than one day. Whereas if I wanted to, I could easily commute to Wizard World Los Angeles 2 or even 3 days. (As it was, we only went for Saturday.)

With two cons in Q1, and San Diego coming up in July, any traveling we do later this year is probably not going to be convention-related. As it is, we’ve talked seriously about three possible non-con vacation spots. But it might be worth casting a wider net for cons in 2009 or 2010.

*Katie and I were talking about this, and realized that it’s probably different if you have kids. In that case, a 5-hour flight probably would be significantly harder to manage than a 3-hour flight.

Update: The photo gallery is up!

The Floor

I spent most of the time on the main floor, hunting down back-issues, bargains and autographs. A lot of dealers had brought their bargain bins (some of them, thankfully, alphabetized!), and a lot of them had trades and hardcovers for half-off or close to it. There were also the booths selling high-grade Silver-Age and Golden-Age books, toys and collectibles, and at least two booths selling swords. Yes, swords.

At one point, I overheard two comic-book dealers discussing whether the show was worth it. One of them said that people here tended to be looking for bargains, so it was hard to sell anything else. They agreed San Diego was a better bet.

I’ve been joking that the logo design for this year’s con (see above) was inspired by the gigantic auto show that shared the convention center witl last year’s con. So I was surprised to find a mini-auto show here: Marvel-themed cars, including Iron Man and Punisher SUVs.

There was a stage set up for Guitar Hero. At one point, I noticed the music was Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.” It seemed appropriate.

Costuming

There weren’t quite as many people in costume as I saw at WonderCon last month (also a Saturday). But there was a large contingent of people in Jedi costumes, some of whom seemed to be sparring with lightsabers every time I walked down the right edge of the dealers’ room. And there were Imperial Stormtroopers directing traffic, making sure people could find the one large panel room that was half-way to the other end of the convention center.

They held an informal costume contest at 1:00, with winners chosen by applause volume. To avoid interference from the “awwww” factor, they held two: one for kids, and one for adults. The kids’ entries consisted of two groups, one of DC characters (Robin, Harley Quinn, and someone else), and one of Star Wars characters (a Jawa, Leia, and someone else. Gee, my brain’s really working here). The Star Wars group won handily.

The adult costume contest had closer to a dozen entries, and came down to two: A very detailed, complicated Optimus Prime, complete with working taillights and light-up Creation Matrix, and a pair dressed as Mario and Luigi. The Mario Brothers won. (IMO, Optimus Prime was robbed.)

The weird thing is that the prizes for the kids’ contest were the same as the prizes for the adult contest: mini-statuettes and busts of characters like Hulk, Venom, etc. I can’t imagine the two-to-six–year-olds who won were terribly pleased with their prizes. The parents have probably listed them on eBay already.

Signings and Encounters

At the Avatar booth, I talked with someone who I took for a sales rep. But when I paid for the books I picked up, he offered to sign the Anna Mercury preview. It turned out he was Jacen Burrows, who’d drawn the cover. (Interestingly, over half their table space and nearly all their shelf space was devoted to Warren Ellis books.)

Once again, there were no placards provided in Artist’s Alley, but a lot of the artists had made their own. I finally managed to track down Josh Middleton, whom I’d looked for at San Diego last summer, and got him to sign my copy of All-Flash #1 (the new one, obviously!) We agreed it was really disappointing that DC had printed it so dark, but he said my copy was actually in the middle of the range! Some of them were even harder to see! I seriously considered buying a print (not that I have anywhere to put it), but while I was there he told someone else that only the pieces up on the board behind him were available—and it wasn’t on the board. Though I have to admit considering his River from Serenity: Those Left Behind.

While looking for Marv Wolfman (since I missed my chance to get the Crisis on Infinite Earths novel signed two years ago, I’ve been unable to catch him again at a signing), I saw recognized Mark Evanier standing on the other side of the row, talking to someone who I thought could have been Peter David. I walked around, saw it was him, and pulled out my copy of Fallen Angel #1 to get signed. He asked me if I was still reading the series at IDW. I said yes, I was, and he pointed out that J.K. Woodward was at the table next to him. D’oh! I hadn’t realized he was coming, so when I was putting together stuff to get signed, I only grabbed the first DC issue of the book, instead of the first IDW issue! We talked a bit about the current storyline, and I got to see some of the original art for the next issue. It turns out he’s doing a couple of signings in the next few weeks, so I might try to catch him at one of those.

I met John Wesley Shipp, who played the Flash on the 1990 TV series. After kicking myself for not bringing the Flash TV Special which I’d gotten signed by the show’s creators at another con, I just bought a photo for an autograph. I also got my picture taken with him. (The guy who was with him handling the money took the picture. When I handed him my camera, he asked whether the flash was on.)

I’ve noticed some common threads among the celebrity signing areas. Lou Ferrigno seems to do a full circuit of cons, as does the actor who played the original Boomer on the 1970s Battlestar Galactica. Several of the contestants from Who Wants to Be A Super-Hero seem to be making the rounds this year.

One set of autographs I wanted to get, but couldn’t, was Seth Green and Hugh Sterbakov. I’d brought my copy of the first Freshman trade, and went over to the Top Cow booth 10 minutes before the signing. Only one problem: The program book had neglected to mention that the signing required tickets, which had been handed out at the Top Cow panel 2 hours earlier.

Added: I did, however, find myself walking past the Golden Apple booth during the Pathology signing. I wasn’t sure whether Katie was in the incredibly long line (she wasn’t, as she’d had the same problem with unpublicized tickets that I later had for Freshmen), but I figured I’d try to snap a couple of shots of Milo for her as I walked past. Or, more accurately, shuffled past. The crowd was so thick that I basically couldn’t move for five minutes. I could barely see him, and couldn’t see anyone else at the booth. At least Michael Weston was supposed to be there, but I couldn’t tell. (Not that I would have recognized him.) (Edit: Apparently Alyssa Milano was sitting right next to him—probably straight through that other camera—but I couldn’t see her at all, even in the photos.) But one nice thing about digital cameras: you can afford to take pictures without aiming. It seemed like everyone in the crowd was reaching up with a camera.

Knowing is Half the Battle

The main problem I had with the convention was hidden information. I’ve mentioned the lack of placards in Artists’ Alley two years running, and the unannounced signing tickets. There weren’t any placards at the panels, either, so if you didn’t recognize someone by sight and couldn’t catch their name at the beginning of the panel, you were out of luck trying to figure out who they were.

Another problem was the map: it showed the dealer’s room in great detail, and the hallway with most of the panel rooms, but it didn’t show how to get from one to the other. It also didn’t show how to find Petree Hall, which turned out to be not only halfway to the other convention center, but directly above a street.

And then there’s the schedule. Most cons I’ve been to will put out a flyer with any changes to programming. Even small fan-run cons will sometimes put out a daily newsletter. Wizard World LA just posted changes on their website and in front of each room. So if, for example, you wanted to go to the Heroes panel, but didn’t know it had been moved from 6:00 to 5:00 in another room (probably to accommodate more people and Milo Ventimiglia’s schedule), and you hadn’t looked at the website at home, there were two ways you could find out:

• Check the website on your cell phone, assuming you’ve got an iPhone or Opera Mini or something else that can handle it.
• Scout out the old room more than an hour before you thought the panel was going to start.

We were fine, but there must have been a few people who showed up an hour late to the wrong room.

In Closing

While I was wandering the floor, Katie went to the Pathology and Lucasfilm panels. We met up for lunch (well, her lunch; I’d eaten an hour earlier), and again for Heroes. (Yes, I passed up DC’s “Countdown to Crisis” panel again.)

After the Heroes panel, we did a quick circuit of the dealers’ room. I wanted to pick up the Anna Mercury book (success) and check one more time for Marv Wolfman (no luck). We left around 6:30, during some sort of giveaway at the Marvel booth.

The door guards asked us two questions: “Did you have fun?” Yes. “Did you find great stuff?” Yes on that one, as well. Despite the convention’s flaws, it was more fun than last year’s, and definitely worth attending.

So I looked up the comic conventions in the area, plus the other two Wizard World cons that have prices up.

And to compare to some non-comic-focused conventions, some nearby, some just big:

It’s interesting to note that WonderCon (San Francisco) and ConDor (San Diego) are extremely cheap if you sign up far enough in advance. Also, when you expand to more general cons, San Diego Comic-Con is right in the middle of the range, with several conventions being more expensive. I’d guess that the more volunteer-based cons like Westercon and Worldcon probably don’t bring in as much money from exhibitors, so they’d be more dependent on memberships to keep afloat.

In compiling this, I discovered that this year, Comic-Con International isn’t going to be selling any memberships on-site. It’s going to be pre-registration only.

I guess they’re expecting it to sell out again like last year, and don’t want people to count on something they won’t be able to deliver. Plus I’m sure it’ll simplify matters for the con, since they won’t need to deal with taking money for registration.

Update: Added Loscon for nostalgia’s sake. Also fixed some links; GenCon rearranged their website sometime in the last 4 days, and I somehow typed in the wrong domain name for ConDor.

Note: These are the 2008 prices, except for the ConDor advance price, which is for 2009. All prices were obtained from the events’ websites except for the way-advance price for San Diego Comic-Con, which is simply the price I paid last summer for this year’s con. For shows with multiple membership packages, such as Wizard World, I selected the most basic package that lets you walk in the door.

*CCI always has a booth selling pre-registration for the following year’s convention at an even lower price.

The convention itself did turn out to be a nice, low-key experience, and I found some interesting stuff, but getting to the convention was a bit of an adventure.

Getting There

The drive up to LA wasn’t bad at all, though I made one critical mistake. Instead of getting off at the first exist that said “LA Convention Center,” I waited for the next exit: the 10W-110N off-ramp to Pico, where the traffic slowed to a dead stop. I’m not sure anyone actually made it to the end of the ramp. It’s possible I only moved forward when someone ahead of me gave up and tore off to the 110 South. After 25 minutes, I got close enough to see a glimpse of the street in front of the convention center… with a line of people stretching around the block.

At that point I decided to bail. If that many more people were there this year, it would be like trying to buy tickets at the door for San Diego. It wouldn’t be worth waiting for three hours just for two hours looking for books that I probably wouldn’t find anyway. I ducked into the next lane and onto the 110 South, took the first exit, and decided, you know, I drove up here, I may as well try to get in. I made it to the parking garage easily via surface streets, thought the Central City sign was appropriate, and headed out to look at the line.

That’s when I noticed three things: First, signs directed Wizard World to West Hall. Second, I was parked next to South Hall. Third, the people in line didn’t look like comic book fans. I walked the entire length of the convention center, eventually discovering that the South Hall was hosting the DUB Auto Show.

By the time I got past the Bride Expo and American Inventor, and finally found Wizard World itself, it was nearly 12:30. But there was only one person ahead of me in line, and there were two clerks selling tickets. I had arrived!

On the Floor

I didn’t attend any panels, since all the interesting stuff was on Friday and Saturday anyway. The main floor was much like the floor at Comic-Con, with a trade-show area, a dealer’s area, and an artists area, only a lot smaller, and a lot less crowded. Actually, I’d say there were about as many comic dealers at this con as there were at San Diego last year. Memorabilia and general pop culture has really taken over the CCI floor space.

As I walked in, they were setting up the Heroes autograph table. Zachary Quinto (Sylar) was the first one to arrive, soon joined by James Kyson Lee (Ando).

Oddly, there were no Heroes T-shirts to be found anywhere. It’s NBC’s biggest hit (Jeph Loeb joked that they refer to it as, “Save the cheerleader, save the network.”), we’re almost to the end of the season, and there are no T-shirts out?

There weren’t too many costumes. A couple of booth babes, one guy in a Transformers costume that I couldn’t place, and, bizarrely, an Alien who was helping to hand out promotional flyers at the entrance.

I wandered through Artist Alley a couple of times, mostly because I’d read that Humberto Ramos (the original artist on Impulse) was going to be there. One thing I found frustrating was that there were no placards identifying the artists. With very few exceptions, I don’t know any of these people on sight. I know their names, and in some cases I can recognize their art style. A few artists had brought their own signs, but surprisingly few of the rest had drawn up their own placards.

The Hunt

My main goal was to further the Golden-Age Flash hunt, which failed. I wasn’t expecting to find anything. Dealers seem to mainly bring their high-grade Golden Age books to conventions, and I’m not looking for collectors’ items, I’m looking to read them. The one low-grade book I found was a rare enough book (All-Flash #32*) that they wanted $200. Though I have to admit I enjoyed the chance to gawk at a pair of 9+ Flash Comics #1 and All-Flash Quarterly #1.

There were a few newer things I was looking for, and skimming the $1.00 and 50¢ bins reminded me of more. Around mid-afternoon, the cries of “All books, half off!” started reverberating through the hall, and I pored through several dozen boxes of 50%-off trade paperbacks. One booth had 5-10 copies of the first Fallen Angel TPB, a fact that came in handy when I overheard someone who was looking for the book.

In the end, I managed to find a full set of JLA/Avengers and a missing issue of Robin with Captain Boomerang, Jr.. The bargain bins helped me fill in the Seven Soldiers issues I hadn’t read, plus Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating JLA and Crisis (I read them tonight—the Crisis book was terrible, and not just because he made Crisis a villain instead of a concept), and a bunch of random Sergio Aragonés stuff.

I left around 4:00. The Pico off-ramp was still backed up, and getting to the freeway was a challenge.

Overall, not a bad day. Maybe next year I’ll try to attend on Saturday. Update: I did. You can read my 2008 WWLA Con Report.

*All-Flash #32 is not only the final issue of the series, but the three stories in it feature big-name villains: the Fiddler, the Thinker, and the first appearance of the original Star Sapphire. The Fiddler and Star Sapphire stories have been reprinted, but the issue contains the one Golden-Age Thinker story I haven’t tracked down.